


ask me tomorrow what i thought of yesterday

by tiltingheartand



Category: Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-18
Updated: 2012-06-18
Packaged: 2017-11-08 01:47:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiltingheartand/pseuds/tiltingheartand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not like the kid has anywhere else to go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ask me tomorrow what i thought of yesterday

It's not like the kid has anywhere else to go. Well, actually that's not entirely true -- the house is hers, after all, after her father died the deed transferred over -- but he figures she wants to be somewhere else for a while. After seventeen years in one place, he's pretty sure he can't blame her.

And anyway, it'll piss Amber the fuck off, so that'll be fun too.

 

 

For a while she mostly just sleeps. His apartment's a piece of shit, because dealing may be lucrative but he's also a wanted man and getting a nicer place would be pretty fucking conspicuous, but it's bug-free and clean and, this is the most important part, has a spare room. Living room. Whatever. And a lot of blankets, which is apparently all she cares about.

She's never awake when he's there anyway, or if she is she does a really good job of pretending to be asleep.

He worries, a little. Maybe more than a little. The food in his kitchen is dwindling, but a lot more slowly than it should be considering she's a teenager, and he's not sure how much sleep a day is too much but he's pretty sure that she's getting dangerously close to the line.

Then again, her dad's barely been dead two weeks. Maybe the sleep is helping.

 

 

Eventually she starts asking if she can come with him, when he goes to harvest. And it's not like he has any real reason to say no -- she's seen him do it before, even if she thought he was a fever dream at the time, and he's fairly sure that she'd ignore anything he'd tell her about the danger.

So he says yes, and for a while he has a companion at night. He doesn't let her do anything beyond touch the bodies, hold his equipment for him. There's no way in hell he's going to let her start selling, either. She may not care, but damned if he's going to help screw up this kid's life any more than she makes him.

And then she thanks him, and stops coming along, but she seems to be sleeping less, so.

 

 

She starts to cook.

It's weird. He doesn't ask and she doesn't tell but he's under the impression she'd never really been in a kitchen for an extended period of time, before -- before. He'd made sure, once he realized she was going to be sticking around for a while, that he picked up a lot of food that didn't need anything beyond the microwave.

(Luckily she'd picked up how to use it relatively quickly. And he hasn't come back to any explosions, so he figures it's probably going well.)

That was actually being charitable, though. He never really cooked, either, because why bother?

But then he starts to come home to food on the table, and it's good food, too. He doesn't say anything about it, though, other than to thank her every time it happens. She ducks her head, every time, says it was nothing every time, darts her eyes away and changes the subject.

So he starts to buy better food, when he can, and when he sees a nice-looking pan he picks it up. She doesn't say anything about it, but she smiles a little that day.

 

 

He gets home one day and it's completely empty, nobody except him anywhere to be found, and he starts to _worry_. He finds the note a few minutes later -- she went out, she'll be back later, don't worry -- and. Well, he's less worried, anyway.

And also more worried. At the same time.

When did this _happen_.

She gets back an hour later looking -- no worse for the wear, anyway. She doesn't say anything about where she's been, so he doesn't ask about it, and when she goes to bed he shrugs and supposes it'll be another thing they don't talk about.

It's probably good that she's going out, though. He's not keeping her locked up, obviously, but except for that week and a half she'd gone harvesting with him he's pretty sure she'd just stayed in every day. And it's been, oh. Two and a half months? So wanting to go out by herself is a good thing, probably.

It's dangerous out there, though, especially for someone like her, and he's really not sure when he became so personally invested. He can't decide if he likes it or not.

 

 

One night she climbs into bed with him.

He raises his eyebrows ever so slightly, and she shrugs a little and says something about how she's been having really weird dreams lately, not nightmares but just _weird_ , and that she thinks someone else near her will help. It's not the strangest thing he's ever heard, so he shrugs back and scoots over from the middle so they've each got a side.

When he wakes he's got one arm around her shoulders and one around her waist, and her head's laying on his chest. It's a little earlier than he needs to be up, and if he's completely honest with himself in the way he can only be when it's very early, he's missed having another body in his bed. That's as far along that line of thought as he lets himself get. So he goes back to sleep.

It turns into a regular thing. The weird dreams went away, he supposes -- she never says anything about them, anyway -- but she probably wants to make sure they stay away. He gets used to staying in the same place all night, gets used to the steady cadence of her breath as he falls asleep. It's nice.

 

 

He wakes up one day and she's on her side, propped up on one elbow, watching him. He blinks a few times, turns his head into the pillow and yawns, and turns on his side and watches her back.

There's movement, all of a sudden, and then she's kissing him, her body pressed up against his, and she's cold, so cold. He lets himself kiss her back just barely, one hand on her hip, but when he feels her open her mouth he pulls away an inch or two, gently as he can, shakes his head once.

"I don't know what to do," she says, and for the first time he sees tears on her face.

"I know, kid," he says. She takes a shuddering breath. When he lays back down she follows him, tucks her head into his neck. He wraps an arm around her waist, reaches down with his free hand and pulls the cover back over them. He ducks his head, presses a kiss to her forehead, and then puts his hand back on her hip and strokes his thumb back and forth until she falls asleep.


End file.
